Opinion

The holiday blues may sound more like a belated addition to the repertoire of Christmas music that dominated the airwaves last month than a mental-health challenge, but they can be painful nonetheless.

After a month or more of planning, visiting, shopping, decorating and otherwise preparing for Christmas and the New Year, it can be hard to settle back into the average rhythms of day-to-day life. To make matters worse, the short days of winter aren’t going anywhere just yet, and lack of sunlight can compound the depression experienced by so many this time of year.

Many publications are now naming their Man, Woman or Person of the Year, and to us the clear winner of the award has to be Pope Francis for the positive influence he has had on the world – and not just its 1.2 billion Catholics.

Since becoming pope 21½ months ago, besides trying to make positive reforms in his church he has played a key role in world affairs. The latest example of that came 12 days ago when it was revealed that he had been instrumental in getting the United States and Cuba to re-establish diplomatic relations between them.

The first definition of the noun ideal in the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary is “a standard of perfection, beauty or excellence. Although it has fallen short now and again, this nation was built upon a number of ideals that makes many of us proud to have been born and raised here.

One of those ideals is our sense of justice. Evidence was presented last week – in the form of 525 pages of executive summary – that many actions have been taken in our name that violate our deep-seated ideas of justice.

Law enforcement is never an easy line of work but we suspect local police officers have found their jobs a little harder in recent weeks in the wake of protests in Ferguson, Mo., and more recently in New York. Grand juries in both communities decided not to indict white police officers in the deaths of black men.

The impact of resulting protests and riots has been felt here at home.

“I feel like everyone who wears a badge is under a magnifying glass,” one officer said recently.

An active and healthy downtown community should be bustling and sometimes noisy. But a city’s or town’s downtown can sometimes be too noisy. Tell City leaders will have to deal with noise and search for balance in 2015.

Tell City’s Pour Haus restaurant and pub, judging from the size of the crowds it has drawn since its late-summer opening, enjoyed a successful 2014. However, Tell City needs a noise ordinance to provide guidance for businesses such as the Pour Haus – and others.

Author James A. Autry famously said, “I believe it is the nature of people to be heroes, given the chance.”

Tomorrow is Veterans Day, the day we honor our military heroes. We recognize the men and women, living and deceased, who have given of their time and talents, risking their well-being, life and limb to preserve our freedom and way of life. It’s no small favor.

Many of us will. In fact, well over 1,000 people have already cast ballots in early voting.

Others of us will turn out tomorrow to choose from the men and women who want to represent us in a several important posts, including county sheriff, prosecutor, auditor, clerk, coroner, state senator and state representative and Congress.

Those are important positions as they impact the direction of local, state and federal government.

Some photos that were meant to be private were recently hacked off several celebrities’ cell phones and published on the Internet, causing the celebrities embarrassment and a feeling that their privacy had been violated.

Now some companies that make the operating systems for such phones are ready to market them with encryption that would make such privacy breaches virtually impossible. But FBI Director James Comey said Oct. 16 that he is against such encryption.

It’s unlikely Marion “Al” Chapman will stand trial on charges of theft or official misconduct. As the News reported last month, Chapman signed a plea agreement in which he pleaded guilty to two counts of misconduct in return for theft charges being dismissed.

If Judge Lucy G. Coffinet accepts the agreement when Chapman is due to be sentenced this month, the former superintendent of Cannelton City Schools will receive a suspended prison sentence and probation. In other words, he won’t serve any additional jail time.

Last Tuesday’s state-candidates forum included a question about ways the legislature can promote shopping, buying and eating locally. Responses included setting an example by committing to local buying, more aggressive marketing efforts, passing legislation that makes it easier for producers and merchants to sell their products at farmers markets, and closing corporate loopholes to shift the tax burden off of families and individuals, thereby increasing disposable income.

“President Barack Obama glossed over some inconvenient truths Tuesday in his climate-change speech to the United Nations,” the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

In a report at the Yahoo News site headlined, “Fact Check: Obama’s UN speech spins statistics,” the news agency responded to five points made by Obama or his administration about progress this nation has made toward reversing practices many scientists agree are contributing to global warming.

September is Suicide Prevention Month and today begins National Suicide Prevention Week. This year’s theme is “Suicide Prevention: One World Connected.”

The Perry County News joins others across the nation this week in supporting suicide prevention.

According to the most recent statistics (2011) released by the Center for Disease Control, Indiana ranks 29th in the country for suicide rates and rankings among all age groups combined; 34th for people 65 and older and 39th for 15- to 24-year-olds.

Cities across the nation are trying to revitalize their downtown areas, and Tell City is no exception. The planned River Pointe project on Seventh Street on the former Tell City Chair Co. property is a big step in that direction.

In the 1960s and ’70s Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana became the first person since the United States’ founding fathers to write two amendments to the Constitution.

Bayh was the main author of the 25th Amendment, which created a process for an orderly transition of power in the case of death, disability or resignation of the president and a method of selecting a vice president when a vacancy occurs in that office.

He also wrote the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.

How America cares for its veterans is indicative of its values as a nation. We’re confident the vast majority of citizens agree that health care for military vets through the country’s network of Veterans Affairs hospitals should meet or exceed common-sense expectations.

Unfortunately, what’s been discovered in recent weeks about the troubling wait times for new patients at VA hospitals reveals there is a disconnect between intent and reality.

One of the speakers at the Tell City Junior-Senior High School graduation ceremony this year made a point that made us stop and think for a moment. We can’t recall who said it or the exact words, but the point was this:

We entered kindergarten in August 2001.

The events which occurred since then, in particular those of September 2001, have made this a very different world compared to how it looked that first day.